Insulation complaints grow
AMa¯ ngere taxi driver is upset his rental property is still not properly insulated three days after a new law came into effect. Mohammed Rafique is looking to lodge a complaint against his landlord, while other Kiwi tenants are being urged to dob in landlords who have failed to ensure their properties are compliant.
Rafique rented a three-bedroom home on Massey Rd so he could have his children at weekends when he has custody, but said the lack of underfloor insulation made it freezing.
“The home is cold all the time,” Rafique said.
Property owner Karan Prasad said
ceiling insulation was put into the home when it was built about 10 years ago but there wasn’t enough room for workmen to put in underfloor insulation.
Homes can be exempt from the new regulations if it is too costly or hard to install insulation, such as when a home sits on a concrete block. Prasad’s property is a wooden home raised off the ground.
“I will ask an Auckland insulator to give me a second opinion,” Prasad told the Herald.
Whistleblower tenants living in poorly insulated rentals have flooded tenancy call centres with queries since new insulation laws came into force this week.
Rental owners had until Monday to put floor and ceiling insulation into their properties — if practical — or risk paying fines up to $4000 to their tenants.
Landlords have had three years’ warning to properly insulate their properties, but there remains debate as to how many actually met the deadline.
The rules aimed to create healthier living conditions for the 600,000 Kiwi households living in rentals across the country.
According to former Housing Minister Phil Twyford, up to 200,000 rentals did not have ceiling or underfloor insulation previously, while Ministry of Health research found 6000 children went to hospital each year with respiratory and other “housing-sensitive” conditions.
The Green Party estimated “tens of thousands” of rentals were yet to comply with the new rules and urged tenants to dob in offending landlords.
But the NZ Property Investors’ Federation said 96 per cent of its landlord members had met the new standards.
Auckland’s Aspire Property Management company handles about 450 rentals and managing director Mike Atkinson said a few were not yet properly insulated.
Most were homes recently converted into rentals by former owner-occupiers, who had not had time to insulate them before the deadline, he said.
However, some owners had waited until six months out from the deadline to arrange insulation.
These owners were subsequently caught out by a shortage of insulation workers that had made it nearimpossible to get their rentals compliant by deadline, Atkinson said.